Those who are over 40 or more will probably remember the wonderful film from childhood "You Never Dreamed of". This is a touching story about first love, the refrain of which sounded a song to the verses of Rabindranath Tagore "The Last Poem".
Has the wind blown away the old name, There is no road for me to my abandoned land.
If you try to see from afar
Don't see me, don't see me
Goodbye, my friend!
Surprisingly, many years after watching the tape, I suddenly thought about the true meaning of the words, this ballad. It is unlikely that in childhood, when we shed tears over her, it occurred to us that the song is not about earthly love. Now I am sincerely surprised: how the then filmmaker bosses released the film on screens with such a soundtrack. Well, we make allowances for the fact that adult uncles and aunts did not particularly delve into the text.
At first glance, these are just beautiful words, intricately strung one on top of the other, and set to music. It seems that we are also talking about love, so everything is in the subject. But after listening to the song on an adult's head, and even weighed down with esoteric knowledge, I understood a lot.
Promotional video:
To begin with, Rabindranath Tagore is a Hindu, and like all people of his time and country, he professed Hinduism. What do we know about this religion and state? That this land of yogis, teachings about chakras and transmigration of souls, curry sauce, castes and sacred animals …
Everything is correct. Most of the inhabitants of India are Hindu. He has many trends and varieties, so as not to boggle the reader's head with unnecessary details, I will not delve into them. I will only say that Hindus have a peculiar attitude towards death. We Europeans, whether we are Christians or not, cannot understand such a "disrespectful" attitude. Why "irreverent"? Because the great river Ganges annually takes hundreds, if not thousands of bodies of the dead into its dirty embrace. Such is the tradition: Hindus do not go to their dead relatives on Parental Saturday, do not leave food and drink on the graves. Many simply do not have graves. The bodies of deceased relatives are wrapped in a kind of shroud and sent down the stream of a mighty full-flowing artery.
Listen to these words, discarding the romantic flair inspired by the movie:
I float away and time carries me from end to end
From shore to shore, from shallow to shallow, my friend, goodbye!
I know, someday from a distant shore, from a distant past
The spring night wind will bring you a sigh from me.
Don't you find anything strange? And here the coast, the shoal, the time that carries from edge to edge. Somehow words do not fit with love experiences in real life. I will cast aside my eternal skepticism and mockery, I will say without guile: from these heart-pounding words, "these are such goosebumps." But not because I am so sentimental, but because the song is funeral! Farewell, you see! This is how living people who will meet tomorrow do not say goodbye to each other, this is how they say to someone who will never see again. At least in this life, and in the current incarnation!
The “Last Poem” is so named because it is dedicated to the eternal separation from a loved one in the best traditions of Hinduism. The words are written on behalf of the deceased, whose body gratefully receives the great Ganges and carries it to where one day it will find its last refuge. The corpse will be washed ashore, fish will eat it and everything will not be as rosy as it sounds at first glance. But the great power of art is given to paint even such an unattractive picture in such a way that tears welling up in your eyes.
Wow - a particularly impressionable reader will exclaim - it turns out that I have been sad for so long over a verse written on behalf of a corpse floating on the Ganges ?! Yes and no. On the one hand, if you translate and understand the poem literally, since it was written, then yes - this is a song about a ritual burial. On the other hand, even skeptics like me understand that Tagore's words contain the highest wisdom of Being. He talks about the cycle of life in nature, about eternal rebirth, about the possibility of meeting in a different hypostasis, about the fact that love and the soul are eternal, and the body is just a shell.
It is not the corpse of a dear and beloved person that floats along the river, but his earthly embodiment, the Spirit rushed further. Towards the Sun and Light, to return after a while. Here, on Earth, there is a trace of a person, immortalized in his deeds, thoughts and actions.
You look, you look, you look
Is there anything left after me.
Will we see each other in another life, will we recognize each other - that is the question. How do you know that the one you sent on an indefinite voyage through the yellowish waters of the river has returned? Is it possible to guess in a crowd of a thousand souls, the one that you loved and lost?
At the midnight of oblivion, on the late outskirts of your life, Look without despair, look without despair
Will it flare up, will it take the form of an unknown past, as if accidental, Will the appearance of an unknown past, as if accidental.
Surprisingly, now every time I reread these lines, their sacred meaning becomes more and more clear to me. I wonder more and more how the Last Poem got into the film? Beautiful words, like about love and relationships, the authors hardly understood the intricacies of the teachings of the Hindus. Maybe they were encouraged and convinced by these words:
This is not a dream, this is not a dream
This is my whole truth, this is the truth.
Death conquering the eternal law is my love …
This is my love … this is my love …
But it is strange, direct, but the text speaks of love that conquers death. About the eternal union of souls. It's strange that no one noticed this. When I told my friend who works as a psychologist about my logical conclusions, she was surprised. I quickly found a song, listened and was delighted. She said she would use it for therapy in difficult cases. Yes, my friend is fond of Indian teachings, and she confirmed my guesses. The speech in "The Last Poem" really is about parting with a loved one who is gone forever. And yes, it was written on behalf of the deceased, whose body, wrapped in a shroud, was carefully given over to water. You're a genius, Angela said. How do you manage to see something new in everyday and familiar things! And I answered sadly: God forbid anyone to see the world the way I see it, it's hard, my dear psychologist!